Yangon arrival was a breeze and we were checked in at the Central Hotel by 1:00PM. A Myanmar native who sat next to us on the flight from Singapore, had emigrated to Australia a number of years ago, was going to attend her niece's wedding -- at the same hotel . We stayed there two nights, however, we only spent a few hours in the city. The first day, quite tired, we took a short walk around the hotel and visited the outdoor Indian street market. It really reminded Judy and me of India. With lots of vegetables, and meat spread out on mats on the road.

Shwedagon Pagoda was the highlight of our third day in Myanamr. It was here that we got our first taste of three prevalent characteristics of Myanamr -- lots and lots of monks, lots and lots of Pagoda and Buddha statues and images and finally, friendly people interested in speak with us. Shwedagon is one of the more holy temple complexes in Myanamr. It's been built and rebuilt many times (wars, earthquakes, etc.). Boy Click on the above image of the monk for additional pictures of Shwedagon.

Like many places, the taxi drivers at the airport are there not so much to make money on the trip from the airport to the hotel, but on the opportunity to take you around on the following days. So, we hired our taxi driver (really his travel company) to take us to Bago and Kyaikhtiyo (the Golden Rock) the following morning. I think we left around 5:00AM for the 3 hour trip to Bago.